For many years, the efforts of the museum in Stutthof to be recognized have been rewarded. Nowadays, their educational challenges lie elsewhere. The director of the museum, Piotr Tarnowski, would like people to establish a tangible take-home message after the visit. He wants more for the visitors than just entering, having the visit and leaving the museum’s grounds. Through their educational activities, their challenge is to influence the attitudes of the visitors. In their publications and activities, they are trying to reach visitors, students and teachers from all backgrounds to spread their message as widely as possible. The educational challenge also lies in the permanent exhibition. This is the most visible element for visitors, and the director described it as the “weakest point” in the Stutthof Museum at the moment but, at the same time, the most crucial element in the educational process. Dating from the 1980s, it is a bit obsolete and is not in line with the actual educational objectives. It needs to be adapted to young generations, “for whom this history feels much more remote than it is for other generations.” But in addition to this educational challenge, they must face the financial challenges of raising the funds for a new exhibition, which the museum does not yet possess. Finally, the Stutthof Museum must face the challenge of being located in a resort area, on the coast in the north of Poland, which makes it difficult for tourists to understand that they cannot cycle around the museum area, they cannot have a picnic there and should be dressed properly for the visit.
As for Bartosz Bartyzel, spokesman of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, he mentioned a challenge common to every memorial site. The last survivors of WWII are leaving us and very soon, the young generations will not have the possibility to meet them. This part of history happened 70 years ago and there is a risk of it becoming merely a chapter of history in schoolbooks. The challenge for every memorial site is “to show that the legacy and the memory that remain should go beyond history lessons.” “It should be a lesson of humanity, a lesson of sensitivity and understanding. A lesson that shows us what extremism, segregation and hate might lead to, what might be the outcome of war. Because the place, the memory site, is one of the last visible symbols of WWII. […] So isn’t it a challenge to think about what kind of attitude we might develop? How this history lesson should be separated from a history book so that it can still have an influence on contemporary times?” Adding to this main challenge is the fact that the majority of visitors are tourists and their knowledge about history can be limited. Auschwitz is seen as a symbol, a place known worldwide, and is sometimes considered simply as a tourist attraction. A great challenge for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum lies in the question: how to reach those people? How to make their visit worth more than just saying “I have been there!”?
Question n°2: With the development of technology and the virtual world within the last couple of dozen years, can we imagine the collaboration of the virtual world and authentic memorial sites? Are these worlds competitive for each other?
The three panel members agreed on the fact that technology should be at the service of the transmission of history and its message, but should not take precedence over the authenticity of the place and shouldn’t trivialize it. The Stutthof Museum’s Director, Piotr Tarnowski, said: “The memorial sites themselves tell the story. It’s not just the exhibition, it is the entire place. And if this is given precedence over the virtual aspect, then the virtual aspect can be harnessed to our advantage.”